PANews reported on March 10th that Virtuals Protocol, in collaboration with the Ethereum Foundation's dAI team, has proposed the ERC-8183 standard, aiming to build an open business layer for AI agents. This standard defines a core "task" primitive: the client locks funds, the provider submits work, and an evaluator (which can be a smart contract, AI agent, or multi-signature) confirms completion or rejection. Funds are held in a programmable escrow contract and are automatically released or refunded based on the evaluation results, enabling trustless inter-agent transactions.

ERC-8183 is designed to be minimalist and scalable, supporting complex business logic such as capital management, bidding mechanisms, or privacy protection through optional "Hook" contracts. This standard complements the agent identity and reputation standard ERC-8004: ERC-8183 generates verifiable transaction records, while ERC-8004 establishes agent reputation based on these records, forming a closed loop of "discovery-transaction-reputation." The proposal states that as AI agents become value-creating economic participants, an open, permissionless infrastructure is needed to support autonomous transactions between agents, avoiding reliance on a single platform. ERC-8183 aims to be a core component of this infrastructure, enabling agents to conduct business securely in a shared digital space.